The present invention has its application in the field of packaging various products whose shape and conformity lend themselves to being stacked and after stacking, being loaded into containers for shipping. More specifically, the particular embodiment disclosed herein concerns application of the inventive concept to packaging tapes. Existing patent literature reveals that numerous attempts to automate packaging of various products have been proposed; however examination of these in comparison with the present invention will clearly show why the former has failed and the latter has succeeded.
To illustrate, the stacking method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,526,075 fails to provide means to support and maintain successive layers of a stack in a positive and foolproof manner, as does the apparatus of the present invention. Without such support, the disolution of the stack is inevitable. Simular deficiencies can be observed in the proposed mechanisms shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,983,097 and 4,865,515. The fact remains that while manufacturing processes which precede the packaging of many products have been automated, package automation has typically eluded practical solution. Such has been the experience with tape roll packaging which is done manually at great expense.